Music Monday Libertarian Rapper — “So Fresh, So Clean” by OutKast

Posted by KingShamus on January 21, 2013

Featuring the most elaborate church preparation rituals ever filmed.

This is by OutKast, the Atlanta rap duo made up of Andre 3000 and Big Boi. Before they parted ways in the late 2000’s, Outkast were one of the biggest names in hip-hop. Platinum records, hit singles, massive tours–you name it, they did it.

But why do I call this post ‘Libertarian Rapper’? Because Big Boi is a libertarian and he’s a rapper. Read on.

MINKOVSKI: Did you vote for Gary Johnson?

PATTON: Yes, I’m a Libertarian. I’m liberty, justice for all, liberty for all. I’m really pro-people, pro-freedom, and, you know, this is all about positivity. Like, you know, I have nothing against the president at all, you know, he’s a nice guy, but, it’s just, you know, the things that they’re standing on right now just didn’t agree with me. Anything that benefits the public and not just big banking, that’s what I’m with.

Just how much static got thrown Big Boi’s way from the famously tolerant progressive movement? I know Big Boi and OutKast haven’t been front and center in the public eye since George Bush’s second term, but still. A rich and famous rapper from the Derrrty South announcing that he didn’t support President Obama is sacrilege to the left wing thought police. You let one wealthy black dude start popping off about individual liberty and voting for a candidate not approved by the nanny-staters and the next thing you know, Democrats might start losing elections.

You know we can’t be having any of that.

I also wonder how Big Boi’s actual fans took to his announcement that he’s a Gary Johnson voter. Do they like OutKast’s music less now that he’s not a Democrat? Are they burning their ATLiens CDs in protest? I really don’t know. I’m sure he lost some fans from this, but just how many is impossible to quantify.

Think about the music artists you like. Imagine if Ted Nugent was a loud-n-proud Obama supporting socialist. Deleting “Free For All” from your Ipod becomes a little more imaginable. Or does the man’s awesome musical output overwhelm the Nuge’s partisan affiliation?

I know when I hear an artist I like spouting off lefty bromides, I get disappointed. I’m no longer surprised when some doped-up hippie starts whining about Bush or raising tax rates, but it does annoy me. I’m just curious how a real fan, who may lean to the left but isn’t a hard-core partisan, reacts when their favorite musical artist starts drifting to the right.

As far as OutKast goes, I never really jumped on their bandwagon, but what I liked about them was their defiant weirdness. Andre 3000 is a hopeless fashion victim, but the man is also an inventive rapper with a unique lyrical perspective. Big Boi had a more conventional thugged-out rap style and image, but that’s just a macho cover for his own musical eccentricities. Most refreshingly, OutKast may have been gleeful horndogs but I never got the sense that they actually hated women.

On their later discs the group channeled the dreamy chill of the Pharcyde, Fatboy Slim’s drum-n-bass energy and Jimi Hendrix’s groovier sensibilities and filtered them through their own slow Southern rap sound. The result was something far more nuanced and interesting than anything going on in hip-hop at the time. It’s sort of a shame that they couldn’t keep it together, but rap is a brutal Logan’s Run-style game played by ambitious young men for an audience that craves novelty over the long arc of a career.

Enjoy.

BTW, I snagged the Big Boi interview from Libertarian Republican. Check out his piece on the news coming out of Mali. You have to see it to believe it.

Starlesssaid

You’re talking about a completely one-way street. Because Leftism has so completely permeated academic and artistic culture in the US, it’s not possible to select music for its creator’s espoused politics and be left with anything other than awful Christian “rock” and Lee Greenwood. Being a Leftist culture snob, OTOH, is extremely easy, convenient, and will even earn you praise for your “forward thinking” taste. (To put it another way: if you are a Leftist you are allowed to maintain your cultural world around criteria established in high school — declaring something “cool” is sufficient. If you’re a Rightist, you must continually justify and defend your choices.)